It’s the corruption of their regulators, the gaming of the system, the production of toxic financial products to fool and plunder, the utter lack of business ethics.

And when the deeds are done and the economy crashes, they get the taxpayer bailouts.

That’s not greed. That’s corporate fascists pretending as capitalists, destroy as imperialist and got away being socialists.

Even the Russian mafia admire them.

Wage(next year) = 1.05 * Wage (this year)
House Price (next year) = 1.15 * House Price (this year)

;)

If greed is good, liquidation is better! When you bet wrong, you MUST lose everything. That’s capitalism.

Bankers are wrong, Tim. Don’t like it? Then go run away to a communist country.

Regulation didn’t let the bankers down – the regulation was perfect for them. However, the people who are suffering are NOT the bankers – the people who are suffering are those who lose jobs because the “too-big-to-fail” banks are taking taxpayer money and NOT rolling commercial paper, not modifying mortgages, not doing anything.

Also, bankers weren’t “a little too greedy” – rather, they deliberately lied.. we call that fraud. It is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for house prices to continue to rise faster than the rise in wages — even Greenspan knew that. His Ph.D. thesis was on the history of housing prices in America. So why did he promote it? He was greedy enough to take bribes and not care about the country.

Greed is good. Fraud and failure are not acceptable.. unless you are a communist.

If instead or letting the ibanks increase their leverage, Bush/Cox had cut it, would we have had Bear? Lehman? would we have had rising subprime or falling subprime lending?

It’s who you elect, that was the problem. People who voted for Bush, twice, are the problem. Rant all you want. Have as many tea parties as you want. You caused it.

I agree and think the whole bonus row, being just a symptom, is taking too much space where the real issues, the roots of the crisis ought to be addressed.

Anyway, I was more struck by Cramer’s turn of speech:

“It’s very easy for me. I know that, I can do that rap, I studied it. I know most of Lenin’s speeches during the period.”

The man talks like a buffoon. Even if he may have a point to make, his impressive conceit made me incredulous. (did that whole second paragraph need to be said?)

Every single complaint about the bankers focuses on one main theme, “greed”. It is bandied about like some sort of tar brush. Apparently today, being greedy is slightly worse than kiddie-fiddling.

“Greed” and self-interest are what makes humans work!!!
Any rational person looks out for number 1; it is human nature.
Furthermore, Mr Gekko was also right. Greed is good.

Without greed, capitalism fails. Step-up you pinko commie idiots.

Greed inspires productivity, innovation and creativity.
Do you really think Steve Jobs is out there designing the next wonder-gadget to better humanity??
No HE WANTS TO GET PAID.

I simply hate people who DENY THEY WANT TO GET PAID.
I want to get paid, everyone I have ever met wants to get paid.

If you are top of your class and the hardest working then I am sorry but you should be paid more than the drop-out lazy bum. That’s life. To suggest anything else is communism in my book.

Of course the bankers were paid too much, in retrospect.
Regulation let us all down. The rules were wrong. Those playing by the rules weren’t wrong.

Just because we had to bail out a few banks because the entire regulatory world failed to notice that the price of houses cannot climb indefinitely, doesn’t suddenly mean that allegedly “virtuous” drop-out slackers are the people we want to reward.

Naturally talented? Get paid.
Work hard? Get paid.

The American dream isn’t broken and we should never forget it.